


Overdrive

by bea_bickerknife



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: A Very Filthy Drive, Car Sex, Don't Try This At Home, F/F, Fingering, Flagrant Violation of Highway Code, Frenemies to Bang Buddies, Oneshot, PWP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 03:01:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14126652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_bickerknife/pseuds/bea_bickerknife
Summary: With every passing second, the phrase "internal combustion" sounded more like a euphemism.





	Overdrive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alephnull](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alephnull/gifts).



> As ever, I own none of the characters in this work, nor do I derive any remuneration from its posting.

_You shouldn’t be doing this_.

In addition to squeaky gearboxes, sweetened tea, and improperly-attributed literary references, the word _shouldn’t_ was one of Kit Snicket’s pet peeves. Unlike a pet project, which is an activity that a person pursues in his or her spare time, or a pet sheepdog, which is an animal that pursues livestock in its spare time, a pet peeve is rarely a pleasant or useful thing to have, but this world is so full of unpleasant and useless things that everyone, even the most well-read of people, inevitably possesses at least a few of them.

The trouble with _shouldn’t_ , Kit felt, was that it didn’t actually mean anything. It was a verb without an action. It implied future guilt without suggesting any particular attempt to avoid it, offering the appearance of noble intentions, but requiring none of the follow-through. _Shouldn’t_ represented the kind of lazy morality Kit refused to accept, and it was one of very few words she consciously excluded from her not-inconsiderable vocabulary. Tonight, however, hurtling down the Hinterlands highway with an impeccably-maintained automobile engine purring underneath her and a thin, manicured hand inching up her thigh, no other word seemed appropriate.

“You sh–” Even now, she couldn’t let herself say it aloud. Gripping the steering wheel a little tighter, she rephrased the statement. “ _Esmé_. This isn't a good idea.”

The slender fingers slowed, idly stroking the skin between Kit’s knee and the hem of her navy blue skirt. “Isn’t it, darling? And what sort of an idea is driving at” – and here the woman beside her leaned over from the passenger side of the leather bench seat to read one of the many dials on the gleaming wooden dashboard – “seventy-three miles an hour when the speed limit is forty, hmm, _Katharine_?”

Kit rolled her eyes. “I told you not to call me that,” she said, ignoring the question.

“Darling,” asked Esmé, “or Katharine?”

“Katharine. Although I’m not overly fond of _darling_ , either, now that you mention it.”

“You didn’t seem to mind last night.”

“Yes, well, given that Monty made the punch, I doubt anyone minded much of anything after eleven o’clock. _You_ obviously didn’t.”

“I also didn’t have any punch,” sniffed Esmé. “It’s _out_.”

“Then why on earth did you…”

“Why did I accept that _charmingly_ crude invitation to dance?” supplied Esmé, and before she returned her eyes to the road, Kit spied the beginnings of a smirk on her scarlet lips. “Why did I pull you into that reading nook? Why did I let you – ”

“I remember,” Kit said hastily. _More or less, anyway_.

Just after the lunchtime herpetology lecture, the air conditioning system had fallen prey to a rogue Martin Luther Kingsnake, which dismantled ductwork nearly as enthusiastically as it dismantled systemic racial injustice; by sunset, the Duchess’ glass-walled ballroom had felt just as warm and just as humid as the reptile’s empty terrarium. Kit remembered leaning back against one of the cool marble pillars and knocking back a cup of Monty’s infamous but mercifully icy sangria, then another, and another. She remembered the din of the brass band, and she remembered the way Esmé’s hips moved when the actress sashayed past sometime during her fourth glass of punch. Not long after her fifth, she remembered inviting Olaf to perform an obscene and anatomically challenging activity before unceremoniously elbowing him aside to find out how those hips felt when they moved against _her_.

Good, she remembered. _Intoxicatingly_ good, and that was where Kit’s memory began to fragment. A shift in the music – faster, she thought, although it could as easily have been slower. Perfume. Heat. A bead of sweat gleaming on white skin. The taste of salt, the rapid flutter of a pulse against her tongue, then an iron grip around her wrist and a hurried search and a hidden alcove and hushed moans and hot, slick kisses that tasted like musk and sin and had nothing whatsoever to do with Esmé’s mouth.

“I remember,” she said again, shifting in place. “But I was hoping you might give me an explanation, rather than a series of rhetorical questions.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the up-and-down movement of a quick, bony shrug. “That was a _very_ flattering dress you had on.”

There was something about Esmé’s voice – or maybe about Esmé herself – that turned a compliment like that into a weapon of distraction. “Even you can’t be that shallow,” said Kit, hoping that the pink glow of the Hinterlands sunset would disguise the flush creeping over her cheeks.

“Oh, but of _course_ I can, darling. It’s really rather easy once you’ve had a bit of practice.”

Kit shook her head. “You don’t like me. You’ve never liked me. In fact, I can’t recall a single conversation with you that didn’t include at least one snide remark about me or my siblings, and every time you and I say more than five words to each other, we either discover something else we don’t have in common, or we invent a new category of insults.”

“Or you slap me,” added Esmé in a sly voice. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten that little incident on the mountaineering excursion.”

“I wouldn’t call that a slap.”

“Well, whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t very _noble_ of you.”

“As if you’d recognize a noble – ” _Steady, Snicket_ , Kit thought to herself, and heaved a sigh. “Do you actually expect me to believe that you decided – purely on the basis of a dress – to ignore the fact that _this_ is how the vast majority of our interactions end?”

“A backless halter dress,” said Esmé, “with an exceptionally... _fetching_ neckline.” Staring resolutely out at the road ahead, Kit felt the peculiar but unmistakable weight of a pointed gaze settling somewhere decidedly south of her collarbone.

“You’re dodging.”

“You’re blushing.” One tapered fingertip traced the row of neat white stitches along the hem of Kit’s skirt where it lay just above her knee. “I suppose I was curious, really.”

“Curious?”

The fingertip was halfway on and halfway off the hem now, a light but insistent brush of skin against bare skin. “I wanted to know if you fuck the way you fight,” said Esmé matter-of-factly. Startled, Kit turned to look at her, only to be met with a dark, level stare. “You do, by the way.”

“And that’s – _dammit_.” Focusing her attention forward, Kit steered back into the proper lane. “And that’s supposed to be a good thing?”

Abandoning all pretense, Esmé slipped her hand fully beneath the fabric, letting it pool around her wrist as she skimmed it smoothly upward. “Why don’t you let me show you?”

 _Because we can’t stand one another_ , Kit thought. _Because you’ve never met an ethical line you wouldn’t cross. Because it’s **wrong**. _ “Because I’m driving,” she said.

“It’s the Hinterlands, darling. It’s not as if there’s anything important for you to crash into, and we haven’t seen another car for the past hour, and anyway, I thought you were supposed to be some sort of driving ace.”

“Rally champion,” Kit corrected.

“I would’ve thought a _rally champion_ ought to be able to manage a perfectly straight road through an empty wasteland, no matter how fast she’s driving or” – reaching the top of Kit’s thigh, Esmé teased over the sensitive skin in a way that elicited a sharp intake of breath – “how distracted she might be at the time.” She paused the movements of her hand. “But if you can’t handle it, then I suppose…”

Esmé was goading her. Kit had known her long enough to expect that. But Kit had _not_ expected the peculiar wave of disappointment when Esmé made to pull her hand away, and so, to her absolute surprise, she uttered two words that she had never expected to say to the second-least-honorable member of the City’s theatrical community.

“Don’t stop.”

A smile spread across Esmé’s face, slow and wicked, and there was a low growl of triumph in her voice. “I won’t,” she said, and punctuated the statement with a metallic _clink_ as she unfastened her seatbelt and slid closer.

“It isn’t safe to do that at highway speed,” Kit warned her.

“Admit it, Snicket. If any of this were even _remotely_ safe, neither of us would be doing it.”

 _Of all the times to start finding common ground_. Far, far out ahead of them, the sun was sinking below the horizon. The wind whipping through the vent windows felt illicit and thrilling on Kit’s bare thighs, and she fumbled for a moment to engage the cruise control before letting her legs fall open.

“That’s what I thought,” murmured Esmé. “You’re curious too, even if you won’t admit it. So _very_ curious.” With deliberate nonchalance, she brushed over the gusset of Kit’s underwear. “Ooh, and so very _wet_.”

Gritting her teeth, Kit willed her hips not to buck. “Friction. Don’t flatter yourself.”

“I’ve barely even touched you, darling. _Friction_ has nothing to do with it. Well,” she amended, stroking a little more insistently over the damp cotton, “not yet, anyway, but you’re right – where are my manners?”

Kit had been wondering that very thing since they day they met, but with the other woman’s warm breath against her neck providing a surprisingly pleasant counterpoint to the cool Hinterlands air blowing into the car, this didn’t seem like the appropriate moment to mention it.

“I should be flattering _you_ , shouldn’t I?” continued Esmé

“That really isn’t what I meant.”

“I’m sure it isn’t what you meant to say,” she said, “but it’s what you _want_ , isn’t it? You want me to tell you how much I enjoyed our little interlude in the Duchess’ hallway last night? How positively _impeccable_ you looked between my legs? How hard I came when you did that clever little thing with your tongue?”

“Well, that much was – _oh._ ” Before she could finish the sentence, there was a sudden, sharp sensation as the actress nipped at a spot just below her earlobe. “That much was – ” she tried again, but when the tip of Esmé’s tongue flickered hot and silky over her bruised skin, she cut herself off rather than risk moaning aloud.

“Obvious?” Esmé smirked against her neck.

“ _Mmm_ ,” moaned Kit in spite of herself, then tacked on a hasty _hm_ in an effort to disguise her pleasure as an affirmation. Two fingers had just brushed over the vulnerable strip of skin above the scalloped waistband  of her underwear and she felt her abdomen clench.

“There’s no point pretending, you know.” Esmé sounded disarmingly conversational as her hand slipped past the elastic and began to inch downward. “You can act as stoic as you like,” she said, smoothing her thumb back and forth over the thatch of curls Kit refused on principle to remove, but insisted, on an entirely different principle, upon maintaining to her usual exacting standards, “but you want this. If you were anyone else, you’d be _begging_ for it by now.”

A flash of a sangria-tinted memory filtered into Kit’s consciousness. “The way you begged last night, you mean?”

“ _That_ ,” said Esmé in the voice of a woman who didn’t want to be reminded, “wasn’t begging. That was constructive criticism.”

“You said _please_.”

“That’s what made it constructive.”

By now, Esmé’s hand was so close to the epicenter of Kit’s arousal that she swore she could feel the heat of it. “If you keep stalling,” she ground out, staring straight ahead into the oncoming twilight, “I am going to reach the logical conclusion that you aren’t anywhere near as good at this as you’d like people to think you are.”

Goading, it appeared, worked both ways.

There was a quick, decisive movement as Esmé shoved her way fully beneath the white cotton, cupping Kit’s sex with a roughness Kit would deny – publicly, at least – that she liked. “You’re right. I’m not,” she purred in Kit’s ear. Her hand felt cool, but it warmed almost immediately as she kneaded the overheated flesh. “I’m _much_ better.”

Under ordinary circumstances, a comment like that would have warranted a rebuke – a word which here means “comment about agreeing to drive Esmé home, but not having enough room in the car to chauffeur her ego as well.” Under these particular circumstances, however, Kit was finding it difficult enough to divide her focus between the road beyond the windshield and the rush of sensation between her legs without adding an argument into the mix.

Kit Snicket was no one’s idea of a virgin, but she had never been touched quite like this. Esmé’s movements felt both casual and calculated; the first time she rubbed against the intensely sensitive spot just to the right of her entrance, for instance, Kit wrote it off as a pleasurable accident. By the third time, she had to admit that there was a certain skill involved not only in identifying the spot in the first place, but in paying _precisely_ the right sort of attention to it. It was the sort of attention that sent a flush of heat through her entire body, and it was the sort of attention that made her hips jerk, and it was the sort of attention that would have made her screw her eyes shut if she were lying in bed, for instance, or sitting on a sofa, rather than hurtling down a highway in a vintage sports coupé.

The fourth time it happened, she couldn’t stifle the keening sound that came from the back of her throat.

“You want more, don’t you?”

The sky was black now, the headlights of the car the only source of light. “ _Yes_ ,” hissed Kit, and trusted the darkness to hide the need on her face.

Obliging fingers teased through Kit’s folds, slicking her open, and if the cool air had felt illicit on her thighs, it felt positively sinful swirling in the space Esmé’s hand created between her underwear and her skin. “Off,” commanded Esmé with a tug at the garment in question, but Kit didn’t budge.

“These are leather seats,” she said. “Hand-stitched.”

Even in the dark, it was abundantly clear that the actress was rolling her eyes. “I’ll pay for the cleaning,” she sighed, and against her better judgement, Kit shifted to pull the cotton fabric down her legs, then tossed it over her shoulder behind the seat. Esmé pressed closer, draping her free arm over Kit’s shoulders, and Kit found herself overwhelmed by her perfume. Riotously spicy and unequivocally, unapologetically _se_ _xy_ , it permeated the air around her, and she couldn’t help recalling how it had smelled on Esmé’s bare skin the night before, the way it had mingled with the taste of her. For a moment, she thought her memory had conjured the scent in her imagination; then, with a shiver that had very little to do with the open window, she realized that while the perfume filling her lungs belonged to Esmé, the heady, earthy aroma mingling with it was her own.

Something about her posture was limiting Esmé’s reach. After a moment’s experimentation, Kit tried to explain that she had never found that type of penetration especially effective anyway, but midway through the word _penetration_ , as if on cue, two of the actress’ fingers crooked into her. At this angle, they couldn’t sink particularly deep; nevertheless, as they fluttered and twisted and quirked inside her, the sensation was enough to send Kit’s back arching.

“Feels _good_ , doesn’t it?” murmured Esmé.

She was many things – a volunteer, a rally driver, a master chili chef – but Kit was not a liar. “Yes.”

“I can make it even better, you know. Would you like that?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Then turn off the cruise control.”

There was a quiet _click_ from beside the steering wheel as arousal and curiosity won out over practicality. Her right foot settled on the accelerator to maintain speed. Instinctively, her left moved toward the brake.

Esmé made a disapproving sound. “ _No_ , darling, spread your legs.”

“If I do that,” Kit pointed out, “I won’t be able to reach the – ”

“Brakes? Trust me, Snicket. You’re not going to want them”

Kit Snicket did not trust her. In fact, even under the most dire of circumstances, she had never once entertained the notion of the possibility of beginning to _consider_ trusting her, and she did not intend to start trusting her any time in the foreseeable future, but just then, a bump in the road brought the heel of Esmé’s hand into contact with her aching clit and her left foot – which apparently put more faith in the other woman than the rest of her did – slid off the brake and came to rest just below the driver’s-side door.

The change in angle was enough to afford Esmé better access. Instantly, her movements deepened, and as her fingers – _have they always been this **long**? – _ sank further inside, Kit broke one of the cardinal rules of professional driving.

She looked down.

In the dim glow of the dashboard lights, Esmé’s hand was an inverse silhouette against the black leather seat. Every taut, straight tendon and every meandering vein stood out in sharp relief beneath skin so pale it looked nearly blue. She had what Kit’s mother would have called fine-boned fingers, birdlike and delicate, but there was nothing delicate about the strength of their strokes. The pattern struck her as oddly mesmerizing: watching them plunge inside her, feeling them filling her, feeling herself clenching around them, then watching them emerge again, gleaming and wet with incontrovertible evidence that, for once, the actress’ ego didn’t outstrip her ability.

At the warning drone of her tires drifting across the rumble strip that divided the highway, Kit’s eyes snapped eyes back up to the road in front of her.

“Ninety-six,” commented Esmé. The pace of her hand showed no signs of slowing, and Kit felt herself beginning to flush.

“Ninety…?”

A soft, dirty chuckle resonated in her ear. “Miles an hour, darling. Can’t you feel it?”

Kit could.

This close to its top speed, the engine’s purr became a growl. It poured into her ears and rattled her bones, and that, as far as she was concerned, was more or less was the _point_ of driving – to dedicate every last shred of focus to moving forward and let internal combustion drown out the rest.

The phrase _internal combustion_ sounded more like a euphemism with every passing second. With Esmé’s expert hand between her legs and the gravelly rumble of the engine vibrating down the steering column and throbbing up through the leather seat, every inch of Kit’s body seemed to pulse with sensation. The needle on the speedometer was approaching a hundred and ten. In the semicircle of the headlights, the lines on the road looked like little more than white dots as they sped past; a crash at this speed, Kit knew, would almost certainly kill them both on impact, but there was an absolute absence of fear in the thought. Nothing felt real above a hundred miles an hour. Everything fell away. Guilt and grief and weakness and wickedness crumbled like red dust into the slipstream, and as Esmé’s fingers sank into her one final time, curling forward with unerring precision, Kit heard herself cry out as she let control, too, dissolve into the rushing nothingness of the Hinterlands night.  

 

* * *

 

 

“It’s in the glove compartment,” Kit said impatiently.

Having just rifled through the contents a second time, Esmé shook her head. “I’m afraid it isn’t. You really ought to be more organized when it comes to your important documents.”

“But it’s right in front of – oh, never _mind_.” Reaching awkwardly across the seat, Kit plucked the vehicle registration from amid the stack of assorted maps, newspaper clippings, and carefully coded grocery lists. She flashed an apologetic smile as she handed it through the window to the uniformed man outside the car. “I apologize, officer.” 

“So,” Esmé asked conversationally as the policeman stepped away to examine Kit’s papers, “exactly how much do you think they fine a person for driving three times the speed limit in a conservation area? Shall we place bets?” She frowned. “On second thought, I’m not sure if I should gamble with a woman who’s about to be bankrupt.”

“I suppose you’ll dine out for weeks on this story,” grumbled Kit, using a phrase which here means “inform all of our mutual acquaintances, as well as members of the theatrical community and the local press corps, of this event in a way that is neither particularly flattering nor entirely truthful.”

“Not necessarily,” Esmé replied. “I mean, I could be convinced to keep it to myself if certain _conditions_ were met.”

“Conditions?” Kit’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of conditions?”

“Just the one, really,” breezed Esmé. A mischievous smirk played across her lips. “Next time, it’s _my_ turn to drive.”

**Author's Note:**

> This work was created for Tumblr user @Viodora and posted as part of ASoUE Fic4Fic 2017.


End file.
